If you've onboarded more than a handful of clients, you have a process. It might live in a spreadsheet, a shared doc, or the head of whoever has been at the firm longest. It works, mostly, because someone remembers to check it.
The goal isn't a different process. It's the same one, without the remembering.
Step one: write down what actually happens
Not the ideal version. The real one. Welcome email, signed agreement, custodian paperwork, risk questionnaire, first planning meeting, portal invitation, 30-day check-in. Put a rough day count next to each. Most firms land at 10 to 15 steps.
Step two: decide who owns each step
This is where onboarding usually breaks. The advisor thinks operations sends the paperwork; operations thinks the advisor does. Every step gets one owner. If it's the client, note that too, because the client's steps are the ones you'll be chasing.
Step three: turn it into a template
In OmegaFP, a workflow template is that list with owners, day counts, and dependencies. Apply it to a new household and every task is created, assigned, and dated. When the signed agreement comes back, the custodian paperwork task unlocks. Nobody has to remember the order.
Step four: let the notetaker feed it
The first planning meeting produces the facts the rest of onboarding needs: accounts to transfer, beneficiaries to confirm, documents to request. When the meeting note writes those as tasks on the same household, the workflow fills itself in.
Step five: watch the exceptions, not the list
Once the routine steps run themselves, the only things that need a human are the ones that stall. A dashboard of "overdue by owner" is a lot shorter than a checklist of everything, and it's the only view a principal needs.
What you'll notice
Onboarding gets faster, but that's not the main change. The main change is that new clients stop getting the version of your process that depends on which week they joined. Everyone gets the good version. That's what a client experience is.
The Tasks and Workflows page shows the template builder if you'd like to see it.
